Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, NOV. 2, 1939. NAZI BARBARITY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 285, 2 November 1939, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, NOV. 2, 1939. NAZI BARBARITY.

A stoey of barbarism and degrading cruelty and oppression which has profoundly shocked the civilised world has been unfolded in the British Government’s White Paper of authentic incidents within and without German concentration camps in the past two years. Originally not intended for publication, the British Government has really been compelled to make these awful facts in its possession known to the world because of the attitude the Nazi authorities are showing to Britain and their unscrupulous propaganda. It is therefore from no motive of hatred that the White Paper has been published, but to combat methods which in the past no nation possessing at least self-respect, and especially one known for its culture and learning, would resort to. Systematically the Nazi Government has hurled abuse at the countries sheltering German minorities for maltreatment of them; Czechoslovakia and Poland, and before them Austria under the gallant Chancellor Dr Dollfuss, felt the weight of German propaganda from the Nazi radio station. Yet while all this was going on ruthless cruelty and despotism naked and deliberate was being shown to the unfortunate minorities within Germany who have committed no crime but racially are repugnant to the Nazis. In the main the stories revealed by the White Paper, which have been recorded by responsible consular officials, cover the Nazi brutality at the Buehenwald concentration camp, where the unfortunate Jewish inmates were subjected to many forms of barbarism from which quite a number deliberately sought escape by conniving at their own destruction. Relief from their sufferings came when others, physically no longer able to withstand their awful torture, collapsed and died from “heart failure.” The demonstrations which occurred against the Jews and Catholics in Vienna, when the former were subjected to shocking indignities in their synagogues, and the Cardinal’s Palace was wrecked, are also revealed in these documents which are a revolt to human conscience.

Not all Germans, happily, favour what is taking place after six years of Nazi rule. At its commencement there was support for Hitler’s crusade, but as it grew iii size and shocking brutality good German people rea-

lised its implications and the effect of world condemnation. But as the Consul-General at Cologne has said, these middle-class Germans dare not voice their disapproval. To do so means arrest and its consequences. To-day the purge of prisons and concentration camps is said to have been intensified. Such revelations are almost unbelievable in this twentieth century of great achievement in science, medicine, art, industry, and the raising of people to a higher standard of living and happiness, but where paganism enters a country and religion is persecuted as in Germany—and Russia for that matter also—human conscience may be readily sribmerged in revolting brutality that recalls the darker ages in history. The Nazi regime has condemned itself throughout the world. Its leader, as, the British Ambassador has said, has lost his moderate advisers through the years and only the malignant and the sycophantic remain. Never was war fought for a greatter or nobler cause.